16 questions that will determine who will win the presidency

CBS News

This post originally appeared on Slate.

Soon we will know. After a campaign where no fact, poll, or dependent clause was beyond debate, we're going to start getting actual votes. Barack Obama's ground game will either live up to the hype or it won't. Mitt Romney will either win Ohio's 18 electoral votes and prove almost every poll wrong or he won't. Obama will either win Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Minnesota or David Axelrod will have to shave his mustache. The voters will finally speak, which reminds me of Mo Udall's line after losing: "The voters have spoken. The bastards."

Here are some of the questions I'm hoping will be answered by the poll results and the exit poll tabulations. I've had such good luck with thoughtful reader responses recently, I'm also interested in what questions you'll be looking to have answered on Tuesday. Email me your ideas at [e-mail].

Will the popular vote winner match the Electoral College vote? Election watchers started to talk about this possibility when Romney led in the national polls but not in the battleground states. If it does happen, we may not know until after Election Day, as provisional ballots, military ballots, and mail-in ballots are tallied. Some Western states, not crucial to the battleground competition, may still be counting their vote for days.

What economic question mattered most to voters? Obama has consistently polled ahead of Romney when people are asked which candidate cares about people like them. Romney has consistently out-polled President Obama when people are asked which candidate can better handle the economy. The exit polls should help us understand which question voters had in their head when they made their choice.

How much has the electorate changed? If President Obama wins, what will his coalition tell us about the electorate? In 2008, he won 80 percent of the minority vote and 43 percent of the white vote. Minorities represented 26 percent of the electorate and whites the remaining 74 percent. He is almost certain to increase his share of minorities, with such strong support from Hispanic voters, but will they turn out? The fewer of them who turn out, the more Obama will need to stick close to his 2008 share of the white vote. If Mitt Romney wins, it will be either by maximizing his totals among white voters--beyond the 55 percent that McCain received. (Ron Brownstein says he needs to get 61 percent. Gallup's most recent weekly data has Romney at 60 percent with whites.) Or, Romney will need white voters to make up more than 74 percent of the electorate. That's unlikely. Whites have declined as a portion of the electorate in every presidential election since 1992.

Does Obama's coalition include white college-educated women? In 2008, Obama lost white men and women without college degrees and he lost among men who had a four-year college degree. But he won a 52 percent majority of white women with a four-year college degree. He's been going after that vote very hard this campaign by talking about pay equity, health care insurance for contraception, and trying to tie Romney to the abortion views of more extreme elements of the Republican Party. Will he keep his majority and maybe expand it?

Who did blue collar white men in Ohio vote for? Nationally, Democrats traditionally lose the white blue-collar male vote. Walter Mondale only received 31 percent of their vote nationally. Obama won 39 percent in 2008, which was actually the party's best performance in a long time. In Ohio, Obama may do better because of his support for the auto bailout and his relentless attacks on Romney for embodying everything that caused the economic downturn--an outsourcer, a layoff artist, and a distant Wall Street-like executive. If Obama can hold down Romney's margins with this group, it might be his key to winning the state.

Did the relentless ads in Ohio doom Romney? This will be hard to tell from the exit poll data, but if Romney does poorly with white working-class voters--a group Obama is doing poorly with in polls in the rest of the country--it may be attributable to the barrage of ads run against Romney in the state. Hopefully the exit polls will ask about the auto bailout as well as which candidate "cares about you." Answers to those questions might give us a basis for some early conclusions, especially if Obama does better on the "cares about you" question in Ohio with white male blue-collar voters than in other states.

Did Obama build two different coalitions? If Obama wins in Virginia, Colorado, or Nevada, it will be because he combined suburban college-educated women, younger voters, and minorities. If he wins in Ohio, it will be with a very different coalition. To win nationally, Obama was supposed to build a minority-focused coalition and get around the bad economy. If he wins Ohio, it will likely be because he did better with nonminority voters and because of his contribution to the state's economy.

Should Romney have introduced "Moderate Mitt" earlier? I'm not sure how we'd test for this in the exit polls, but based on the responses of the undecided voters I corresponded with, the governor's more moderate tone was highly appealing. By most polls, this race only got tight after the first presidential debate, when Romney unveiled his more moderate posture. If only he'd deployed it earlier, some undecided voters have told me. What if he did? Would he have had enough time to elbow Obama off the political center or would it have cost him the conservatives he always needed to be competitive?

• no previous page
• next

1/2

[bfranklin51]

I am concerned with professional announcers' bias. Why does CBS use old white guys that are obviously for Romney? Their conversation is clearly not objective, but critical. At a time when we need to send a positive message for the future, they sow seeds of discontent. I will avoid CBS news in the future; I'm so disgusted.

[1988JAck]

Obama has won, women ahve won -- why can't Repub white men act with dignity when they lose.
Oh, pathetic they are. If you have lost ast liek men -- women get this.

[1yam250]

Thank god today it's over. If I see one more ad or get one more phone call I think I will vomit.

[mikesfilms]

Obama 1000 times better than BUSH REBORN.

Romney's loss boils down to two issues: Mendacity and Disclosure. His whale-size lies (I'll create 12 mill jobs, I'll balance the Budget hiking Defense & cutting the Rich Tax) and his hidden tax reports and offshore accounts were nasty slaps on voters' face.

[inketolstoy]

Yah, your guy tells the truth and the other guy is lying. You do realize being a party tool is not patriotic.

[jsr7accs]

Wrong, you're just spouting left wing talking points, now drink your coolaid and hush!

[inketolstoy]

You forgot the most important question that will be answered by this election: Are Americans too stupid to save this country?

[1yam250]

I hope not. If you want another george bush vote for romney. They are both one in the same. Those were the worst 8 years of my life. The republicans are all the same. BUSH - ROMNEY no differance.

[NotfooledGOPoutoftouch]

Blah blah blah - Stick a fork on Romney he's done...........

love seeing teabagers boil!!!!!!

[cbscentralbarackchnl]

There is evidence that Obama backer Bernardine Dohrn, who traveled to Cuba
to meet with communist officials, was involved in a bombing that killed a
policeman.
Ayers, who helped launch Obama's political career, has traveled to Venezuela
on several occasions and is an enthusiastic backer of the brand of communism
being practiced and promoted by Hugo Chavez.
Ayers' university office door and wall are plastered with communist,
anti-Israel, and pro-Hugo Chavez propaganda.
Bernardine Dohrn has participated in two events organized by the Open
Society Institute of Obama backer and billionaire leftist George Soros.
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a group that included a
convicted espionage agent for communist East Germany, backed and promoted
Obama's political career.
Obama spoke at a memorial service on behalf of a leading Chicago socialist
activist.
It appears that Obama actually worked for Ayers in a Chicago educational
reform program that dispensed millions of dollars of grants.
Illinois State Senator Alice Palmer, who picked Obama as her successor, has
a record of involvement in communist front activities.
Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod, as well as Obama himself, have not
explained why Ayers, Dohrn, then-State Senator Alice Palmer, and Dr. Quentin
Young came together at the Ayers/Dohrn home to launch Obama's political
career.
Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, a client of Axelrod, issued a controversial
and misleading statement defending Obama's relationship with communist
terrorist Bill Ayers.
Illinois Lt. Governor Pat Quinn, another Axelrod client, designated "Quentin
Young Day" in the state, in honor of an Obama supporter once questioned
about his involvement in backing SDS activities and who was accused of being
a CPUSA member. (Young refused to deny he was a CPUSA member before a
congressional committee but during an informal interview said he had never
joined the CPUSA).

[samiam714]

The McCarthy period ended in 1955. Calling a person a 'Communist' 14 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, has the same power as calling some one a Tsarist in Russia. Grow up. The Communist Boogetman is gone. Get a life, read a book, listen to something beside Fox and maybe, just maybe, you will be graced by sanity.

[cbscentralbarackchnl]

Barack Obama has been influenced, surrounded and backed by communists,
socialists, and those sympathetic to the Arab/Palestinian cause in the Middle East.
Obama has been in the middle of two international communist networks - one
in Hawaii and one in Chicago.
The Hawaii network included communists Frank Marshall Davis, who was Obama's
personal mentor; actor/singer Paul Robeson; and labor leader Harry Bridges.
The network was judged a security threat to the United States and the
subject of a congressional hearing on the "Scope of Soviet Activity in the United States."
The Hawaii communist network was organized directly by and from Moscow.
Obama covered up the true identity of Frank Marshall Davis in his book,
Dreams From My Father.
The Chicago network included identified communists and socialists, was
committed to a communist victory in the Vietnam War, and took instructions
from the communist Castro regime in Cuba.
In addition to communist terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who
were members of the Weather Underground, the Chicago network includes many
veterans of the communist Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) who now
proclaim themselves "Progressives for Obama."

[cbscentralbarackchnl]

Sat in Rev. Wright's church for 20 years and said he didn't hear a word, lie.
Obama's new budget instead of saving 3.5 trillion dollars will now cost 3.5
trillion dollars. that's only a 7 trillion dollar mistake. Failure
Obamacare will now cost 1.7 trillion instead of 945 billion as Obama promised
according to the CBO. Failure
Banks that got TARP money are paying back the loans with other federal rescue
programs according to the GAO. Failure
Obama is bought off by Bill Maher for $1million contribution. Failure
When his association with Wright became a liability, he threw him under a bus.
No loyalty
Started his political career in Bill Ayers' living room, served on boards with
him and now disavows a friendship with the man.

[cbscentralbarackchnl]

2.1 billion dollar loan given by Obama to Solar Trust of America just went into
bankruptcy so they can't build the Southern California solar farm. They had
five employees. FAILURE.
Obama hasn't had a single democrat vote on his budgets in two years. FAILURE
President Obama: "On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this,
this can be solved but it's important for him to give me space.
"President Medvedev: "Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about
space. Space for you...
"President Obama: "This is my last election. After my election I have more
flexibility.
"President Medvedev: "I understand. I will transmit this information to
Vladimir." Total Failure